TO LIVE TO BE 140

Shangri-La is alive and well and can be found in Vilacamba—a village in the Andes where 9 people out of every 800 are over 100 years of age. In a society like ours, this would mean 100 people out of every hundred thousand; and the fact is that there are only three. The Vilacamba live exactly as they please, smoking and drinking as long as they live. The only discernable common denominator—at least thus far—is hard work; they walk and work till they die. One other difference: they ingest only a third of the calories we consume, and only a fifth of the animal fat. The film offers a discussion of the phenomenon of Vilacamba with Dr. Alexander Leaf, a specialist in gerontology at Harvard University and Massachusetts General Hospital.